Foundation Initiatives

The Music Mapping Project was a research and data collection project involving the systematic documentation (“mapping”) of music makers and their practice in different cities in India.

In the current era of digitisation and easy consumption, archival practices are becoming increasingly relevant; archives are evidence of who we are and where we come from.
The Music Mapping Project narrates and archives untold stories of individuals, institutions, and cities through music. It presents a musical map of our nation beyond geographical boundaries, which create a sense of identity and belonging through shared music. This then becomes instrumental in increasing our understanding of cultures, communities, and clusters. 

The pilot project focused on Delhi. The pilot involved collecting and collating data from across the city in an effort to understand the histories, lives, needs, and aspirations of full-time professional musicians in Delhi. These musicians spanned across various demographics and the project explored the socio-cultural contexts from which their music practice has emerged. In addition, the data collected during the course of the project has been shared in the form of a digital archive available for all to access.